Thus the two stood in the moonlight, scarcely three yards apart and facing each other.
"You're quick on the trigger," said the short man; "and if it had been daylight I might have gone under. I'm not one to bear malice, though it's a rough old joke to be shot at. If I was some men you'd not be standing now."
"I know it. Yet daylight or dark, if I had not discovered my mistake in time, I should have been standing and you down. As I pulled the trigger I raised the barrel for I saw it was the wrong man. The right one is near me somewhere though, and had you been he, the scores would have all been wiped out by this time."
"I thought so. I kinder saw you hitch up your iron, so I knew you had made a mistake when you threw the tube to your shoulder. It was sudden though—and not the first time a white man has drawn sights on me. I've been watching you since you came around here; I've been waiting for you to show your hand, and I want to know to-night what your game is. If you are on the square, with no infernal curious kinks in yer nature, well an' good. But if ye want to know more than ye see, if ye must take a hand in what don't concern you nor your'n, then take a fool's advice—an' move on."
"See here, Martin, if that's your name, don't borrow trouble about me. You're not my man. I don't want to know more than one thing, and that is, where my man is. Then I don't want to do more than one thing. I want to lay sights on him. After that it's a matter between him and Killemquick, and the chances in Killemquick's favor."
"That's all right; but s'posin' 'your man' is one of my men—I want to know something about that; fur down here along Back Load Trail there's a few on us as hang together mighty close. Ef you get them double-sights pulled on some as I knows on, mebbe there'll be the like on you with a quicker finger on the trigger."
"Very well, old man, you know all I can tell you. My name is Winkle, and I'm laying out for my man. I've heard of Back Load Trail and I've heard of Dick Martin that rules it. I'm an honest man and a square man, and I tell you there will be some fancy shooting done along here before long. If it's to be war between you and me let us know it now and I'll play my hand careful. Remember, I'm not going to interfere with you except as I have to; but if so be that there's danger in the air for one of your friends, more's the pity."
"Yer mighty indefinite, stranger. Ef you've ever heard of Back Load Trail, as ye say ye have, ye must know that outsiders that sometimes try to ring in here, occasionally git the'r last sickness. We run things down here to suit ourselves purty much, an' ef you've got a grudge ag'in' any one it's all right, so he's an outsider, too. But, ef it's ag'in' one of us Free Trappers, the bullet is already run that puts yer light out. I don't know of any strangers on this trail but yerself an' one more, an' he only come down from the mountains last night. Ef it's him, all right. Ef it ain't—look sharp. Ef it's me, but ye say it ain't, I'm here now!"
The voice of Dick Martin rolled out round and full as he uttered the words, "I'm here now"; there was even something heroic in his tone, just as there was a world of bitter warning in the first part of his address. But he seemed to make little impression on his vis-a-vis, who looked at him steadily, and answered him coolly:
"I neither know nor care if the man I'm seeking is a Free Trapper, or whether he just came down from the mountains. I know I'm a dead shot and I know I'll shoot him dead. When you find a corpse lying on the broad of its back with its left eye shot out you may calculate that my mission is accomplished and that I'm done with this region. As for any threats you make, I care nothing for them, I fear for nothing, nothing can harm me. I am above all chances, for I am a minister of Fate, and until Fate has been served, the lead is not run nor the steel forged that can harm me."